The Fearless Life: Live Worry-Free No Matter What Happens

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THE FEARLESS LIFE by Jentezen Franklin

Published by Charisma House

Charisma Media/Charisma House Book Group

600 Rinehart Road

Lake Mary, Florida 32746

www.charismahouse.com

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version of the Bible. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc., publishers. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version of the Bible. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked THE MESSAGE are from The Message: The Bible in Contemporary English, copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Copyright © 2014 by Jentezen Franklin

All rights reserved

Cover design by Justin Evans

Design Director: Bill Johnson

Visit the author’s website at www.jentezenfranklin.org.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Franklin, Jentezen, 1962-

The fearless life / Jentezen Franklin.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-62136-549-5 (trade paper) -- ISBN 978-1-62136-584-6 (ebook)

1. Problem solving--Religious aspects--Christianity.

2. Confidence--Religious aspects--Christianity. I. Title.

BV4599.5.P75F73 2014

248.8’6--dc23

2013032518

Portions of this book were previously published as Fear Fighters by Charisma House, ISBN 978-1-59979-762-5, copyright © 2009, and Believe That You Can by Charisma House, ISBN 978-1-59979-348-1, copyright © 2008.

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication.

There is no fear in love;

but perfect love casts out all fear.

—1 JOHN 4:18

CONTENTS

Introduction

1 Living the Fearless Life

2 Fearless About Failure

3 Fearless About People

4 Fearless About Having Enough

5 Fearless About Your Family

6 Fearless About Your Health

7 Fearless About Death and Eternity

8 Your Refuge From Fear

9 You Have Faith for This!

Appendix: Moses’s Song of Divine Safety

Notes

INTRODUCTION

DO YOU WORRY too much? Fear has gripped America. We see it in the economy; in challenges with our health care system; in politics; in rising unemployment levels, diseases, and crime; in increasing acts of terrorism; and conflicts around the world. Every day our news media bring us stories designed to make us more afraid. We live in a world that seems to be getting scarier by the day.

To make matters worse, most of us add to these real concerns with a laundry list of personal worries and fears about things that may or may not even be rational. How much energy and emotion have you wasted fearing things that never materialize? Some research suggests that only about 8 percent of everything we worry about actually has the possibility of happening!¹

I’ve written this book because it is not God’s will for your life to be ruled by fear of any kind. You were meant to live the fearless life. That’s why I’m giving you the tools you need to overcome the most common fears all of us face at one time or another: fear of failure, fear of rejection from other people, fear of not having enough, fear about bad things happening to your family or your health, and fear of death.

Living the fearless life doesn’t mean you’ll never feel afraid, but it does mean you can face that fear and overcome it to take God-inspired risks and succeed. You can feel secure knowing God Almighty is your refuge. You can live with courage in every situation you face!

Don’t settle for a life ruled by fear, a life where the enemy has stolen your joy, peace, and future. Here’s an amusing little poem to give you a picture of the kind of life I want you to avoid.

There was a very cautious man

Who never laughed or played;

He never risked, he never tried,

He never sang or prayed.

And when he one day passed away

His insurance was denied;

For since he never really lived,

They claimed he never died!²

What a zero! I don’t want to get to the end of my life and realize that I left any part of it untapped because of fear. Since you’ve picked up this book, I’m praying you feel the same way.

It’s impossible to live life without feeling any fear at all, but the kind of fear that controls you and steals your very life from you doesn’t come from God. The Bible says, For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind (2 Tim. 1:7).

God has given you everything you need to defeat your fears. With His help you can be everything He created you to be. Join me on this journey to discover all the weapons in His arsenal for defeating your fears and living the fearless life!

1

LIVING the FEARLESS LIFE

FOR SEVERAL YEARS I traveled as an evangelist, speaking an average of six nights a week in different churches. During that time I perfected a basic repertoire of about thirty sermons, which I’d preached so often that had I dropped dead in the middle of any of them, my wife could have finished them for me. So, when I was asked to become the pastor of Free Chapel, I faced the challenge of preparing three new sermons each week. My greatest fear was that I couldn’t do it. Did I have what it takes to stay fresh, grow my congregation, and build a strong pulpit ministry? Looking back, I see God’s wisdom at work. He placed me in a small community where I could do the least amount of damage while still learning.

Every weekend the challenge came back. By Tuesday the pressure began to build as I approached Sunday. Often I’d study until 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m. on Sunday morning and leave my office feeling drained and apprehensive, praying, Lord, if You don’t help me this morning, I’m sunk!

But I learned to swim. I became a reader, discovered great resources, developed discipline and solid study habits, and above all, I learned to lean on God as never before. That lesson of learning to lean on God is the way I overcame one of the biggest fears in my life. It was the first step in living out a concept I’m talking about in this book called the fearless life. And it is the key for you as you face whatever situation you’re in right now that has caused you to pick up this book.

You know what they say about fear? FEAR = False Evidence Appearing Real. Fear comes in two basic categories:

1. Fear that you won’t get what you need

2. Fear that you won’t be able to hold on to what you have

Anybody who ever beat the odds or made a difference did it in spite of their fear. They did it because they were desperate and felt like they didn’t have a choice. Sometimes they were inspired by somebody else’s example. They said, If not me, then who? If not now, when? They didn’t think much about it at all, or else they might have changed their mind.

What are you waiting for—a feeling of courage? Forget it! It doesn’t exist. You’re only courageous when you do what’s right despite your fears! That courage in the face of your fears is how I’m defining fearlessness. You’ll still feel the uncomfortable situation you’re in, but you’ll also feel the freedom of knowing God will handle it, so you have nothing to fear. That’s the fearless life.

The Bible is a David-and-Goliath book. It teaches you that with God on your side, you’re bigger than any problem, so you can be fearless. The question is, do you believe that enough to step out and allow God to use you? If you’re just believing God for things you can do for yourself, you’re limiting Him. Furthermore, if you think He’ll never ask you to do things you can’t do, think again! Jesus told one man to walk on water and another to come out of his grave—and they did!

Instead of focusing on what you’re afraid of, recognize that God has called you and equipped you, accept the gifts He’s given you, and start building on them.

LET GOD CHALLENGE YOU

Whatever season you are in, God wants you to learn to say, I cannot do this in my own strength. I need to lean on Him. You’ll never have all the answers, so you might as well leave the risk-free safe zone, where you can figure out the next step and can handle whatever comes your way, in favor of living in the faith zone.

Living the fearless life requires living in the faith zone. It means reaching up and grabbing hold of nothing and holding on to it until it becomes something. God wants you to live there. In fact, He wants you to live there so much that He will stretch you again and again. (He’ll let you stay in your safe zone for a while if you need to, but He really does not want you to live there.)

Let God challenge you to step out on nothing. Even if you’re not particularly desperate at the moment, allow yourself to become willing to take a faith risk just because He is calling you. When you move out into the faith zone, when you choose to live the fearless life, you’ll discover that’s where God lives.

I would not be writing this to you if I had chosen to live my life in the safe zone. When I had been an evangelist for a while, I was in the safe zone. I was in my denomination. Cherise and I were traveling and ministering. We were doing fine, and we had a dependable salary. We felt that we had a good future and that everything was looking up. But right in the midst of that security and everything going right, God’s Spirit began to agitate me and stir me up with tremendous discontent.

I found myself absolutely miserable, even though I had everything (I thought). God’s Spirit began to touch me, and He said, Are you ready to move out of the safe zone into the faith zone? You can stay here, and it will be OK, but you’ll never get to see the miracles, you’ll never get to see the supernatural, you’ll never get to see what I really could have done in your life—unless you’ll dare to get out of that safe zone and step into the faith zone.

I’m so glad I said yes to His invitation! We went from doing good things to being in God’s perfect will, and there’s a big difference between those two. Now, I need to tell you that if you’re in God’s perfect will, you may find yourself feeling very unsafe at times. You will feel extremely uncomfortable. But you will learn to depend on the Lord as you never could learn back in the comfort of your safe zone. Remember, when a God-given opportunity comes along, it is God’s gift to you. What you do with that opportunity is your gift to God.

You need to understand something about God. The Bible says, Without faith it is impossible to please Him (Heb. 11:6). That means that it does not matter how much religious activity is going on in your life. If you are not relying on your faith, you are not pleasing God.

If you’re in the safe zone, you don’t really have to pray and seek God for anything because you feel OK about what you have already. You don’t really have to be anointed because you can do everything without the anointing. Even though the security of the safe zone is what we try to achieve our whole life long, it’s not God’s will for His children. His will is that His children will always be dependent upon Him. Always.

When a God-given opportunity comes along, it is God’s gift to you. What you do with that opportunity is